


this is how i love you.

by yukla



Series: and they linger on [2]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, M/M, Sexual Tension, he's working through things ok guys, sappiness ft. illya, vulnerability ft. napoleon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 21:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20607350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yukla/pseuds/yukla
Summary: Napoleon still watches Illya like a drowning man, eating up the curve of his neck and the flex of his shoulders with his eyes, committing to memory every sigh and frown and grin—but the difference is that now, he is painfully aware of Illya watching him back.***In the months following Paris, Napoleon pries his chest open, rib by rib, and lets himself be seen.





	this is how i love you.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a continuation of “and they linger on”, so i would suggest reading that first if you haven’t before!

TOKYO

Summers in Japan are unforgivingly humid, and this particular year is no exception—Napoleon can feel the sweat soaking into the back of his shirt, and the blast of air conditioning as they enter the hotel is a welcome respite from the suffocating air of the city. 

As soon as the team has made it up to their shared suite, Gaby darts towards the bathroom to wash off the sweat, leaving her strappy, cream-colored heels kicked haphazardly across the carpeted floor. Napoleon sighs once, contemplates picking them up for her, but then turns away in favor of dropping himself onto the couch. 

Halfway into his slow metamorphosis into a vegetable, Napoleon hears lllya’s clothing rustle as he approaches the back of the couch, but ignores it and continues staring blankly ahead as the protests of his aching body register. Truly, his knees had been about ready to give out earlier in the day, and now they feel near-liquefied. 

“Still cross with me?” 

Napoleon continues his perusal of the wallpaper. He can practically feel Illya looming at his back.

It’s harder, these days, to pretend that every nerve in his body isn’t tuned into constant awareness of his partner, that no matter where he is, there is always something deep inside him that is watching Illya with something that is not quite wariness, not quite hunger, something that he can’t hold down and name. Napoleon can no longer pretend that he isn’t stuck in infinite orbit around him, circling and circling without any hope of breaking free. 

In any case, he feels that the cold shoulder treatment he’s currently giving his partner is well deserved. Illya had missed his check-in. Scoping out a pachinko parlor with rumored connections to a very violent member of the yakuza, undercover and alone, and he had missed his check-in by an hour. Napoleon, one street down, had been ready to charge in after him until he saw Illya wading his way towards him through a crowd of black-haired, brightly-dressed young people. He had given no explanation for his tardiness, and so in return Napoleon has not said a word to him since making it back to the hotel.

The sensation of cool glass pressed against his neck jerks Napoleon from his thoughts. He twists around, readying a glare, and is instead faced with a bottle of premium sake. He takes it into his hands, turning it around to examine it, and then directs his attention upwards at Illya, who is watching his face intently. Exasperation finally tips him into opening his mouth. “Please tell me you didn’t miss your check-in because you were getting me alcohol.” He does not pinch the bridge of his nose, but it’s a near thing. 

Illya shuffles a bit, shamefaced. “You said that you missed the taste, before.”

“When did I—” mutters Napoleon, and then suddenly recalls a hushed conversation under the intimate, sweltering cover of the midnight sky. 

Halfway through one long night of surveillance on the rooftop of a building in Venice, he and Illya had been moved by boredom into listing off and describing the many countries they had visited in the past, and Napoleon had told him about the numerous times he had come to Japan in his youth. Now that it’s been mentioned, he distinctly remembers saying something about the smoothness of sake, but he hadn’t expected Illya to remember such a small detail, let alone a throwaway comment from several months ago. His partner has been paying more attention than he thought. 

Napoleon feels a smile coming on, and raises an eyebrow to cover it up. “You know that beer is actually more popular in Japan than sake right now.”

Illya shrugs his great shoulders again. “Local flavor.”

At this, Napoleon can’t help but crack a grin. “You may be right there, Peril.” He turns and sets the bottle of sake carefully on the coffee table, and then snaps back around to pin Illya with a hard stare. “But in the future, don’t do that again. I—” He clears his throat. “Don’t make us worry like that.”

Illya’s eyes soften. “I promise,” he says, and leans down for a kiss. Of course, this is when Gaby takes it upon herself to slam open the bathroom door, announcing her presence. 

The door ricochets off the wall with a bang and nearly hits her on the rebound, but she manages to dodge it even with a towel draped halfway over her face. Napoleon reels back, fumbling as he tries to straighten himself out as quickly as possible before Gaby can see. She emerges from the steam, face flushed with the heat, her bathrobe long enough on her that it looks more like a dress. 

“Shower’s open, boys! The water pressure almost makes up for—ooh, is that sake?” She stops, taking in the scene in front of her, both her partners looking somewhat ruffled. “Oh, was I interrupting something? You both seem a bit...stiff.” While her tone and expression remain casual, her eyes light up with wild amusement, and Napoleon stifles the urge to shift uneasily.

She flops onto the couch next to Napoleon, shaking her hair out. Napoleon winces as both he and Illya are showered in flecks of water. “Gaby, please.”

Gaby snorts as she begins to scrub roughly at her sodden head with the towel. Napoleon, exasperated, snatches the towel from her before she rips any of her hair out and starts drying it himself, rubbing gently to absorb any of the water. “Water isn’t going to hurt you, Napoleon, and that suit is done for, anyway. If anything, I am just expediting your cleaning process. You smell like sweat, both of you.” She waves a hand at Illya. “Don’t stand around, go get yourself cleaned up!”

Illya frowns. “Napoleon should—”

“He’s drying my hair.” Gaby gives him a sharp look, although the effect is somewhat ruined by the fact that she’s drowning in a large, fluffy white bathrobe. She looks like a little kitten—not that Napoleon would ever tell her that.

Illya is clearly of the same mind, going by the twitch of his lips before he shares a look with Napoleon. “Little chop shop is quite a dictator. Perhaps you are not the one who should be called Napoleon.” Obediently, he begins to make his way towards the bathroom. 

“I don’t want to be able to smell you when you’re in the same room as me. We have a perfectly functioning shower, now go take advantage of it. Be glad we don’t have to go to a public onsen!” Gaby hollers at his retreating back. 

“A nice soak wouldn’t be too bad at the moment,” Napoleon murmurs under his breath as he massages the towel into her scalp. 

Gaby snorts. “Yes, that isn’t the only thing that you’d enjoy there. Hot water, small towels…” She pauses. “A full frontal view of Illya…”

Napoleon freezes, and apprehension trickles down his back like ice water. “Miss Teller, you are simply ridiculous. Are you sure you’re not projecting?” His attempt to deflect is so clumsy that he can’t even hold back his wince, and Napoleon counts his blessings that Gaby is facing the other way. 

Gaby has always been unusually skilled in the art of demonstrating non-verbal judgement, and her mastery once again presents itself in full bloom, even with her face fully obscured by a towel. Safe in her blind spot, Napoleon’s shoulders start to rise up around his ears like a schoolboy expecting a dressing-down, but when Gaby does finally speak, it isn’t the indignant reply he was expecting. 

“You can trust me, you know.” Her voice is soft. 

Napoleon, caught off-guard, stares at her back, her narrow, sloping shoulders. She continues on. 

“I’d have to be more than an idiot to not realize you two had finally talked it out once he came back to our hotel room in Paris. He had such a sappy look on his face, I almost vomited,” Gaby says, fond tone belying her words. 

Napoleon’s heart flips as he imagines that aforementioned sappy look, as if he hasn’t been reliving that confession every night in his head. “But I’ve been hearing about this from way before then, as well. Who do you think encouraged him to pursue you in the first place?” 

Napoleon, who had not known that, feels a rush of gratitude—a feeling which promptly dies when Gaby continues on with a snort, “Anyway, it’s not like I don’t see you making kissy faces at each other in the corner of my eyes every time you’re both in the same room.”

She continues on, voice steady. “But the point is, you and him. I know. And I hope you know that you can trust me, and that you can tell me these sorts of things.”

Napoleon stirs guiltily. He takes a second to find his voice. “I...Illya...I’ve never. I can’t...” he struggles, not sure what he’s trying to explain. 

Gaby snakes a little hand back and squeezes his own. “It’s okay, Napoleon. It doesn’t have to be now. But I just want you to know that I’ll always be ready to listen.”

Napoleon squeezes her hand back gratefully. 

“Now get back to drying my hair. My neck is getting tired.” 

Eventually, Illya steps out of the bathroom, clean and changed into fresh clothes. “Gaby, you say to be glad we are not at an onsen, but I think that might have been a better choice.” He grimaces exaggeratedly. “There, we would not have to see your hair all over floor.”

To Napoleon, he says, “I picked it all up—be grateful you do not have to see it. I thought there was a rat in shower.” Napoleon feels an absurd pulse of affection at that and tries not to show it on his face, although he probably fails at that, going by the judgmental look in Gaby’s eyes. He ignores her. 

Illya has crossed the room, and once again is standing behind the couch where Napoleon sits. He slides a hand across the back of Napoleon’s neck. His thumb caresses the tender spot at the nape of his neck, just under where his hair has broken free of the pomade and is beginning to curl in the humidity. He studies the flush on Napoleon’s face. 

“It is too hot,” he decides. “I’ll go down, get some ice for drinks. Napoleon, go shower.” He squeezes gently, then turns and makes his way to the door, his hand trailing down Napoleon’s shoulder as he does.

The door shuts behind him.

Although he isn’t looking at her, Napoleon can practically feel Gaby’s eyebrows raising, and stays pointedly silent until he’s finished towelling her hair to his satisfaction. Only then does she twist around to face him. “Napoleon, I have to tell you the truth. I was lying earlier.”

He frowns. “You lied? What about?”

She nods her head, her eyes solemn. Her chin quivers slightly, as if holding back some great emotion. “Yes. I was lying. You don’t smell like sweat, you smell like sexual tension.”

“Gaby!”

Gaby cackles as she makes her escape off the couch. 

***

Napoleon still watches Illya like a drowning man, eating up the curve of his neck and the flex of his shoulders with his eyes, committing to memory every sigh and frown and grin—but the difference is that ever since Paris, he is now aware of Illya watching him back. Napoleon steps outside of himself, he observes every touch and word and glance, absorbs every gesture between them. 

The white flowers Illya leaves in his room in Athens, dropping petals on his nightstand which glow translucently in the sun streaming through the window. The way their hands touch when Illya passes him his coffee in the morning, knuckles grazing and fingers tangling over the hot porcelain. The soft look in Illya’s eyes when Napoleon wakes up in the back of an old, rumbling truck to find his head resting on his partner’s strong shoulder. 

Napoleon watches himself be watched, and somehow, he is still not sure what to think of it. 

***

LONDON

When their team is given the opportunity to stake out the Italian restaurant that is a known haunt of suspected MI6 double agent Amelia Thomas, Napoleon jumps at the chance to enjoy an elegant meal on U.N.C.L.E.’s dime. He doesn’t stop to wonder at Gaby’s sudden excuse of filing post-mission paperwork in order to beg off her attendance.

As expected, Thomas is having her dinner at the restaurant. Napoleon requests a table in the corner to keep a careful eye on her, and thinks nothing more of the lack of resistance that Illya offers to an evening of what he would usually refer to as “unnecessary capitalist indulgence”, until halfway through the meal, Napoleon feels something nudge him under the table.

The first time, he thinks Illya is just stretching his legs, but three minutes in, the sensation has graduated from innocent bumping to a decidedly sensual stroking, and it is taking Napoleon some effort to keep his face studiously blank. “Peril. We’re in public.”

Illya tilts his head. “Yes. What of it?”

Napoleon shifts in his seat until their feet are no longer touching. Curiously enough, although their skin technically had not been touching, he still feels colder, somehow, after the contact is lost. “Don’t—try anything.” He feels the need to repeat himself. “We’re in a public restaurant.”

Illya hums. “Of course not.” He takes his wine glass in hand, considers the dark liquid with a thoughtfulness that is clearly feigned—_“It is rotten juice, Cowboy. I can go to a shop now, buy you grape juice, let sit in cabinet for forty years, same thing, less money"_—and takes a sip. 

“These ridiculous upscale restaurants you are so fond of. So typical, this western decadence. It is not enough to have food to fill your belly, you must have your candles and your silver forks and spoons and your background music.” He puts the glass down and leans forward, pale eyes glinting in the flickering glow of the candle. “But you know what I do like about them?”

“What.” Napoleon doesn’t know where Illya is going with this, and it makes him nervous. Not that he would ever admit that. 

“These tablecloths. Stupid to need a cloth to put over table, but...has its uses. Good for concealment. Cases, weapons...other things.” Illya bares his straight white teeth in a grin. Napoleon sits, tense under the scrutiny, and then nearly has to catch himself on the table when the seat underneath him lurches forward. 

Illya—through some incredible feat—has somehow stretched one of his impossibly long legs out, hooked it around the leg of Napoleon’s chair, and managed to pull it forward until Napoleon’s chest is nearly pressed against the edge of the table. Their knees knock together, and Napoleon hopes foolishly—both for the sake of his composure and the sake of general propriety—that Illya will stop there.

Unfortunately, life since joining U.N.C.L.E. has proven to be a practice in smashing Napoleon’s hopes and expectations into the unforgiving ground. As such, Illya proceeds to slide his leg in between Napoleon’s and tangle their limbs in such a way that Napoleon can feel the long, hot line of Illya’s strong legs pressing up against almost every part of his own. 

His mouth has dropped open in a gape, and he knows that he probably looks silly beyond belief—hands clenched around the edge of the table, meal abandoned, staring foolishly at the man sitting across from him. He’s about ready to jitter out of his skin in apprehension, eyes darting to the attendees seated around them, before he realizes that not a single head has turned toward them, despite the screech of the chair, and no one would be able to see what they’re doing under the table, anyway, due to the tablecloth. If nothing, he trusts Illya’s judgement. However, that does not stop the sudden rush of heat to his face. 

“What are you doing?” Napoleon hisses. 

Illya just smirks at him.

“What, we’re in a restaurant, Peril—my God, don’t look at me like that.” Illya’s laughing eyes track the way the flush crawls up Napoleon’s pale neck, clearly visible even in the dim room. 

“Why not look? Pretty things are meant to be admired.” Illya has the nerve to grin even wider. 

Illya and his stupid, stupid smile. The thing is that Napoleon has, in his line of duty, behaved far more scandalously in far more high-stakes situations than this, all while keeping his cool. He’s flirted with duchesses at dinner, one hand caressing a bejeweled wrist and another hand sliding up silken skirts. He’s gone down on his knees for criminals in cold and dirty alleyways, biting back creeping shame and revulsion all the while. And yet—now that it’s Illya’s face grinning at him across the table, and Illya’s knee dangerously high between his thighs, and Illya’s ankle stroking at his calf—Napoleon feels his face burn and his breath quicken, and his heart pounds so furiously that he is sure it is shaking his entire body, that the entire restaurant will be able to hear the _ click-clack _ rattle of his bones.

“You haven’t eaten your dinner, Cowboy. You don’t like it?” Illya pushes his plate forward, lips curled in mirth. “Try mine.”

“Shut up.”

Napoleon ends up eating all of Illya’s pasta, his legs still tangled with Illya’s, skin prickling under his partner’s steadfast gaze. 

When they follow Thomas out of the restaurant half an hour later, Illya drags Napoleon into a darkened side-path, pushes him up against a wall, and kisses him until he’s breathless and has to hang off Illya’s shoulders to stay upright. When questioned, Illya claims that Thomas had given them a suspicious look, and he was merely throwing her off the scent. 

Napoleon doesn’t believe him for a second. 

***

NEW YORK

“I just. I think I want him to know me,” Napoleon says to Gaby one night, months after Tokyo, and then immediately wishes he could shove his words back down into his throat. Gaby’s face is blurred under the haze of neon lights and cigarette smoke.

She drums her un-manicured nails on the surface of the table as she nurses her martini. Her feet swing absently beneath her, legs barely long enough to allow her shoes to graze the rungs of her chair. “We’ve been partners for ages—I’d be worried if he didn’t know you. Or do you mean biblically?” She snorts. “I figured you would have reached that point by now.” The clack of her fingernails speeds up until it is in time with the music being played. 

Napoleon’s gaze strays across the room to the bar, where Illya is towering over the crowd as he attempts to procure them another round of drinks. Illya glances back, catches his eyes and wrinkles his nose in clear disgust at the way the throng of drunken Americans press up against him, and Napoleon’s heart nearly cracks open at the sight. He wets his lips and tries to gather his thoughts.

“We haven’t, not that that’s any of your business, Miss Teller. But that’s not what I meant.” 

“Do elaborate.” Gaby tilts her head and looks at him as if she’s been waiting for this all along, as if she’s known what he’s wanted to say ever since that mission in Tokyo. 

“I—don’t know. It’s not that simple.”

The chatter of the bar washes over them. Gaby continues to tap her fingernails on the table. She does not avert her gaze, and when it seems that no response is forthcoming, she sighs into her glass and turns in her seat so her whole body faces Napoleon. 

“You’ve been hiding yourself your whole life, haven’t you?”

Napoleon frowns, feeling defensive. “This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but that’s somewhat of a necessity in our line of duty—”

“Shut up. I didn’t say it wasn’t. But Napoleon, you take it to a whole other level—and sometimes I don’t even know if you’re being yourself or if it’s another mask.”

He grimaces a bit, feeling somewhat chastised. “Look, Gaby, I—”

“Again, shut up. I’m not trying to lecture you.” Gaby pauses to rest a small hand on his shoulder. “But my point is, we’re your _ partners. _You can trust us, and more than that, I know you can trust Illya. Clearly, you and him, you’re—well. You know better than I do, how he feels about you.”

Napoleon can see Illya making his way back over Gaby’s shoulder, looking slightly more rumpled, but with three glasses clutched triumphantly in his hands. When their gazes meet, Illya’s scowl slips off his face. His eyes are warm. 

By the time Illya has crossed the floor back to their table, both Napoleon and Gaby have smiles ready and hands outstretched to receive their drinks—but for the rest of the night, Napoleon hears Gaby’s last hushed question in his head, over and over:

“So, Napoleon, what are you so afraid of?”

***

One day, Napoleon fears he is going to creak open like a wardrobe, ribcage folding back like wings, and everything will come falling out—all of him, all the ugliness he keeps sealed up inside. The Napoleons that he was and wasn’t, each of them popping out one by one, like matryoshka dolls. His jealousy, his fear, his shame, his pride, his longing. The naive childhood hopes that he can’t seem to smother. His guts, curling on the floor among the shattered pieces of himself, tangled so badly that he won’t be able to tell where it starts and where it ends. His blood, sticky and pooling and thick, the smell so strong he’ll have to hold his breath. 

His heart. His disgusting, shuddering heart, dripping red and beating and beating and beating. 

Napoleon will stand there, chest pried open, hands smeared with his own horrors, treading on the mess he created. A macabre show for a jeering audience. And when he sees that it is all too much for him to gather back alone, that no one will help him put himself back together, when he realizes that he did this for nothing at all—the only thing he will be able to do is ask himself: 

_ What did you expect? _

****

EDINBURGH

Two inches closer, and it would have been done.

It’s all Napoleon can think about. Two inches closer and the bullet would have pierced through Illya’s head. 

If not for Gaby, who charged the gunman and threw off his aim, Napoleon would have had to see his Russian’s beautiful brains splattered across the ground. 

The entire moment—the drawing of the gun, the ice in Napoleon’s veins when he realizes he’s too far away, the flash of Gaby’s brown hair in the sun, and the splintering of the tree trunk where the bullet hits next to Illya’s left ear—all of it takes maybe five seconds. Five seconds, and it’s all over, and Illya is snapping into action and helping Gaby disarm the gunman—although there’s not much for him to do there, since she already has the man sprawled out on the ground, blinking dazedly from under a fresh black eye—and Napoleon is sprinting ahead to take down the rest of the man’s compatriots. His blood pounds in his ears, his heart races in his chest, but his hands remain steady and so does his aim. 

After the mission has been completed and they’ve received orders to fly out the next morning, they return to their safehouse. Napoleon goes quietly into his room and it is then that the tremors start. He lowers himself into a chair and pours himself two fingers of scotch, and observes distantly as the surface of his drink ripples in his glass. He takes a sip, and then another, and when he is finished he pours himself some more so he can watch the liquid tremble again. When he closes his eyes, he can see Illya’s face, Illya’s handsome face, a perfect hole drilled into the center of his skull, dripping pink and red and grey down his nose—Illya, face slack, eyes blank, cold and quiet and horrid on the ground. Napoleon’s hands shake and shake and he cannot hold them still. 

When Illya knocks on his door, dusk is settling in, and the clouds are purple through the dusty glass of his window, and Napoleon is still sitting in his chair. 

He does not bother getting up to open the door—he does not think he is capable of getting up. “You can let yourself in.”

Illya enters the room, silent as a shadow. He clocks the empty glass on the table, and Napoleon hunched over in the chair, and his forehead wrinkles in concern. Napoleon wants to reach up and smooth it out, to touch Illya’s brow and feel its wholeness beneath his fingertips, but he holds himself back. 

“You okay, Cowboy? You have been in here since afternoon.” Illya offers a tentative smile. “It is too quiet without your chattering.”

When Napoleon does not reply and keeps staring at the carpet, Illya lowers himself down at his feet and looks beseechingly into his face. “Tell me what is wrong,” he says softly. Napoleon feels something in his chest crumple, at that, and he inhales and feels the breath shiver in his throat. 

“You were almost shot today.” Napoleon’s voice is at a whisper. If he speaks any louder then something might break. 

Illya wraps a hand around his ankle, calm and steady. “We are spies, Cowboy. It is a part of life now.”

“It was different.”

“How? We are nearly shot every other week.” 

Napoleon can’t hold it back. “In the _ head, _ Illya! You were almost shot in the head! You can’t come back from that, you can take a bullet to your arm, your leg, but you can’t come back when someone blows your brains out, and you were almost _ gone _right there, and I—you would have died in front of me!” His voice cracks. Napoleon grabs at Illya, desperate. “I nearly lost you today, and I can’t accept that you would have just gone like that and I haven’t even told you that I—”

Napoleon stutters. 

“I needed to tell you that—” He chokes again and trails off. Illya stares up at him. His lashes are so long, Napoleon thinks wildly. 

It’s quiet beyond the door of his room, and Napoleon hopes that Gaby is resting and not, in fact, listening with her ear glued to the other side of the wall. His breath wheezes in his lungs. Illya continues to stare, silently, eyebrows drawn together. 

Napoleon is splintering apart. Something gives way, his jaw creaks open, and he observes himself from a distance as everything inside him streams out. 

“I—I would crack myself open and hollow myself out, for you, if I thought it would keep you safe. Do you understand what I’m saying? I would hold you in my body and not let anyone touch you.” Illya’s shirt bunches under his fists. “I would peel off my own skin and show you everything inside, if it. If it meant that you would stay by me. How else can I—what does that mean to you? Illya, what else can that mean?”

Something is dawning in Illya’s eyes, now. His fingers stroke Napoleon’s ankle. The other hand rests up on Napoleon’s knee, and it feels like an anchor. 

Napoleon continues on, voice thin and horrible. His mouth is dry, and he cannot look away. “I want to tell you everything, Illya. I want to tell you how I grew up. I want to tell you the worst things I’ve ever done and show you all the drawings I’ve ever made. I want to take your watch when you aren’t looking and sit through you yelling at me. I want to burn a blackberry pie in your kitchen and have you make fun of me for messing it up and then still try to eat it even though the filling is too hot, and then I want to laugh at you for burning your tongue. I want to wake up way too early in the morning because you’re a freak who gets up at 7am, even when we sleep late at night after missions, and still know that when I reach for the other side of the bed, you’ll reach back.”

Illya’s hand tightens over his knee. Napoleon hopes, hysterically, that it’ll bruise. He wants Illya’s fingers to sink in through the layers of his skin and fat and muscle and push into the marrow of his bones and stay there. 

“You watch me, Illya, and it isn’t enough. I want your eyes on me all the time. I want you to see everything about me. And I want to know everything about you. And the fact that I feel so much over one person, I can’t stand it. I really can’t stand it.” Napoleon swallows and feels his throat spasm. 

“And I’m scared of you knowing but I’m even more scared of you _ never _knowing this, Illya, I need you to hear me say it, please.” His throat is closed up so tight that it comes out like a gasp. “I, I love you. I love you. I’ll love you until I break apart and I’ll love you even after that, I love you, I love you, I love you—"

All at once, Illya gives a great tug, and Napoleon is jerked out of his chair. Suddenly, he is sprawled in Illya’s lap with the chair legs hard against his back and before he can react, Illya’s forehead is pressed against his own. They breathe the same air, and Napoleon feels insane. 

“Yes, yes,” Illya sighs against him, “I am yours, you are mine, and I love you.” Napoleon shudders in his arms, and Illya shuffles impossibly closer. He thumbs the hollows behind Napoleon’s ears, noses down Napoleon’s jaw and presses soft lips to his pulse point, whispers into Napoleon’s neck and calls him beloved and darling and treasure. 

Napoleon feels gorged on it, full and practically ready to spill over—but he still wants to taste Illya on his lips. 

“Illya, Illya, please, please, I need you—” he chants, until Illya finally surges forward and licks into his mouth, trapping Napoleon in between his body and the chair and pressing their hips together. Illya’s hands and mouth are hot like wildfire, burning through cloth and skin, blazing right down to the core of him, setting him aflame. 

It feels like hours before Illya sits back to let him breathe—Napoleon gasps for air, lips swollen and bruised and wet—only to scoop him up with ease, carry him over to the bed, and drop him down on it. Napoleon bounces once before settling onto the mattress, and he tilts his head back to gaze up at his partner. Illya looks like he wants to worship at Napoleon’s altar, he looks like he wants to strip Napoleon down and open him up and see all of him. He looks hungry. 

And so Napoleon bares his neck, parts his lips, and lets Illya consume him. 

***

When they board the plane the next morning, Napoleon seats himself in the first empty row, making sure to give Gaby a careful berth—her remarks that morning have been unbearably full of innuendo, no doubt in revenge for the undeniably loud racket he and Illya had made all night, and he doesn’t know if he can tolerate one more thinly veiled sex joke. Just as he’s preparing to settle in for the long flight, Illya drops heavily into the seat next to his, effectively ruining his plan of laying his legs out across the other seats.

Napoleon stares around at all the empty rows in the plane, and then back at Illya. “You’re seriously going to choose the seat right next to mine and deny both of us the chance to stretch out?”

Illya’s expression is unbothered. “Yes.”

“Why.”

“Because I feel like it.”

"Seriously, why.”

“Because you are the love of my life and I want to sit next to you. Hush, Cowboy.”

Illya reaches out and lifts the armrest between them, ignores Napoleon’s choking fit, and settles calmly into his seat. Napoleon can hear Gaby valiantly fighting to hold in a snort from two rows back. He slides down a bit in his chair. 

“Illya, you can't just say things like that—”

“I am tired,” Illya interrupts. “Did not sleep much last night—you neither. It is best that we rest now, while we can.” He looks at Napoleon expectantly, one arm outstretched. Gaby is giggling audibly now. 

Napoleon looks back. He can feel his ears burning, and yet when sees Illya sitting there, blue eyes wide, hopeful grin tugging slightly at the edge of his lips, he cannot think of anywhere else he would rather be in this moment. With a sigh, he moves across the divide in their seats and leans until he is pressed up against his partner, cheek to hip. 

“Only because I love you, Peril.” It comes out as a murmur. 

He can feel the movement of Illya’s chest under his head and hear the beating of Illya’s heart in his ear. The noise of the plane, the scent of recycled air, and the rumble of the engine beneath his feet—everything falls away until it is just them. The rise and fall, air in and out. The even, steady thumping, on and on. 

Illya smiles and wraps an arm around his waist, and Napoleon closes his eyes and lets himself be held.   


**Author's Note:**

> “This is how I love you. I am peeling back my skin, layer by layer, so you will finally know everything inside me.”  
-Roxane Gay
> 
> hi guys...it's been ages (i'm sorry;;) since i wrote "and they linger on", but i was inspired to create a continuation both because i still love tmfu (where is our SEQUEL??????? HELLO) and because this is a form of closure, for me.  
a lot has happened in the last 2 years. it's hard to be vulnerable again after being treated badly by someone you thought you could trust, but i wanted to prove to myself and napoleon that the effort will pay off, someday. we gotta submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known in order to receive the rewards of being loved, ladies.........
> 
> if you enjoyed this, please let me know in the comments, or drop a kudos!!


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